38 Comments

David

With a 3 litre turbo diesel and 4.2 litre petrol vehicles and 100s of thousands of air miles I feel I have done my small bit for the planet..or at least for the polar bears. Pleasing news all round and happy to contribute.

David

OMG Winston Peters party is pushing legislation that lets folk self declare their gender and skip having to put Mum or Dad on the birth certificate. This is Trudeau level virtue signalling from NZ First..unreal.
If you are a woman and a feminist you should be pissed at this, everything you have fought for is about to be disappeared. Next time a politician craps on about the gender pay gap we can just point out gender is just a social construct hence it doesnt exist so just shut up.

Kitty Catkin

A Canadian person has managed not to to put the baby’s gender on the birth certificate and given him, her or it one of those instantly forgotten nothing names – the kind that look as if someone’s put their hand into the Scrabble bag and used the letters that came up.

I have heard that some people are raising children not to know if they are boys or girls, which will lead to tears.

Corky

The PDF posted yesterday was from the Asthma society. They are in a bit of a bind. This
method does work, but the science is scant.

So, not being able to dismiss the number of people helped with this method, they have decided to control the narrative on how Buteyko may, or may not, help asthma suffers.

One part of this strategy is the Asthma Society now runs their own breathing classes. Ring them up and they will steer you towards their breathing programme. However, they won’t hold back information regarding Buteyko.

It’s interesting to note the science of breathing is taking off with athletes improving their performances using methods similar to Buteyko. I recently took some lumps trying to explain how the Russian special forces use ”burst breathing” to develop inhuman stamina. I think I was called ”a dreamer.” 😃

robertguyton

Thanks, Corky, for the “inside info”. Re the Russians, I once read that their plant scientists had experimented with using boiled water as a super-fertiliser for plants; boil the water vigorously then bottle it, the way you might peaches or plums, then feed plants with the de-oxygenated water later on, to extraordinary results – apparently. I’ve never been able to be sure it was a true idea or not, having not yet tried it, but one day I will.

robertguyton

Kitty Catkin

Robert, have you ever accidentally boiled plants when the water in the hose was scalding hot from the sun ? The first time that I realised that HOTTTT water was coming from the hose, I thought for a startled moment that it was somehow coming from the hotwater cylinder…but the plants survived after a good long cold shower.

High Flying Duck

“Most of the bad news we are getting can be seen as a sign of progress to a new Golden Age.

For you can’t get a Golden Age without breaking up the previous age, whether it’s of tin or lead or something worse.

And a lot of the good news doesn’t get on CNN or Fox, but shows up elsewhere.

First, for example, put the news and social media about political tumult in context. For instance, prior to the real Civil War, a real depression brought widespread suffering, even starvation. Politically, members of Congress were brawling in the Capitol and not just figuratively: punches were thrown, and one senator was beaten nearly to death. Southern congressmen, at least, carried pistols and Bowie knives. (Jill LePore’s “These Truths” is one of the books that covers this.) Murders and brutalizations of slaves were daily occurances. John Brown tried to incite revolt. In 1860, Lincoln was kept off the ballot in many Southern states.

In my recent times, I myself can remember when American cities were burning and our biggest political leaders were being assassinated, and bombings were commonplace. The economy was in the tank and the experts were saying it was all downhill from there.

Now: people insult each other on Twitter. Members of Congress are snide with each other. Some Democrats may well be trying to steal elections. Yawn.

The economy is booming. Poor people always have it tough, but rather than starvation, they get too much junk food. White people widely admire black people, including a former president, many entertainers, and most sports stars.

Even the bad news is good news. Yes, there is animosity in the political class. That will happen when things change.

History is not a prison. But it’s useful.”

“The globe once had power divvied up very nicely. An elite ran things. There were occasional changes of office. But every well-run organization knows that bringing in new managers helps keep things going. In the U.S.: Bush to Clinton to Bush to Obama. Flip the channels from NBC to CBS to ABC. Buy a Ford one year and a Chevy the next.

As many have noted, that structure is breaking apart. Which means the establishment is threatened. The establishment is reacting.

Meanwhile, when the old structures dissolve, human beings are being freed up to act on their impulses — good and bad.

You can’t have a new age without getting rid of the old one.

For an analogy — not to persuade, but just to make my point clearer — you often can’t get rid of an illness without running a fever, or having a runny nose or cough, or vomiting.

So the Twitter insults and comedians’ tasteless jokes and political uproar are very possibly signs a new age is being born. Look around. Old standards and ideas are dying. People are doing things they’d never thought of doing before. Bad things are being vomited up.

One, with old strictures falling, people are going to think things they hadn’t thought before. Then say them.

But we have a chance to understand people better. As apparently Crenshaw did.

A sign of the new Golden Age will be understanding psychological realities.

We are beginning to understand who we are. We are advancing from the age that assumed we were were completely rational, and are realizing we are often non-rational.

Which includes understanding that very little in our minds is rational, and what there is is often dominated by non-rational feelings, images, emotions, primal defence mechanisms, and outside pressures.

Our minds are random generators of anxieties, feelings, images and fears. Our thoughts are not us. (From Dr. Hanscom.) Many of things we label thoughts are not even thoughts, in the sense of being coherent entities that reflect the real world. They are flickerings of neurons, they are the reruns of survival mechanisms that kept our race alive in the jungle.

So random things flit across our minds. In the past we probably repressed most of them. Whether that is good or bad is beside the point now. In our modern world we have been coaxed into paying a lot of attention to what happens in our minds. Then letting it out.”

lurcher1948

Always look on the bright side of life, long weekend away up at Clive, love those paying for my pension
I see someone appears to be grizzling about Christmas this morning.
Makes a change from all the usual gripes about RNZ, Jews from you know who, Little, Adern & Neve, Galloway etc

Kitty Catkin

It was very odd; dinner parties usually go man/woman/man/woman…..I have never seen it done like this. Mrs P looked awkward and Mr P was ignoring JA who was doing most of the talking. It all seemed very awkward & I would say that it was deliberate.

I don’t know why the 3 reporter was talking about a ‘fulsome’ conversation; I hope that it wasn’t.

Kitty Catkin

robertguyton

I judge the Best of Show for the New Zealand Rhubarb Growers Federation annual show and have no complaints about the excellent after-show dinner they put on, Kitty. Nothing dull about it. You owe those good folk an apology.

Corky

A liberal snowflake next to a hard right Conservative. Remember, Pence isn’t allowed to talk to another woman if the news item I read was correct. I would say the food is better than at a dog event, Lurchy.

Kitty Catkin

Don’t be more ridiculous than you can help being. He can hardly avoid talking to women, we are half the human race.

He is never alone with a woman,even in a restaurant, a wise precaution when the dirty-minded assume that even the most innocent meeting between members of the opposite sex means that they must be having an affair.

Kitty Catkin

Corky

Corky

Vicious Muslim terrorists wanted to butcher innocent Aussie Infidels. They are found guilty. Makes for chilling reading. They laughed in court. The annoying thing is they will be protected in jail by the strong Muslim brotherhood. Nothing like diversity.